Sunday, November 30, 2014

Le Laboratoire Cambridge recently moved into the first floor of an office building in Kendall Square (for the locals confused by the vague google maps directions, it's across the ice skating rink from Aceituna). Le Laboratoire is a museum and learning center dedicated to the arts, creativity, and science. They recently opened a flagship restaurant that melds their motto into food, called Cafe ArtScience.

We ended up sitting at tables in the bar area, meaning we could order from both the bar and dining room menus, which was a great choice.

I ordered the Johnny C to drink, and the combination of vodka, lime, chartreuse, St. Germain, and orange bitters was far more balanced than the tiki drink I had the first time (there was mango pulp formed into discs throughout the drink, making it look cool, but they didn't dissolve until the very end, giving me a very dry drink and then very sugary ice water...not good). Sadly, they were out of the Waft-Tiki, a drink with a vapor component and special ice cubes - so that's something for next time!

They focus on French dishes, and since I'd never tried leeks aux vinaigrette, I went for it! The leeks were good, but honestly, I could have eaten about three pounds of the crab they used for garnish, it was definitely the star of the plate.

We were also delivered the most devastatingly good salt-kissed focaccia, and ordered the cheese plate from the dessert menu to come out as an appetizer. A small wheel of cheese, a schmear of honey, and marcona almonds, it was delightful. The mixed nuts we ordered were tasty, but on the oily and messy side.

The desserts of the evening were great! Sarah and I shared a cherry wood smoked cake with angostura geleé, maraschino cherries, angostura toile, marshmallo, and a cherry puree.

All
in all? I'm thrilled that there's another addition to the Kendall
Square roster. My strategy next time would be to gather up some moderately hungry friends, order the cheese plate
and one entree (to make sure that there would be lots of bread), drinks, and lots of dessert. Though the main
courses were tasty, they are expensive for what you get. In comparison, the $12 desserts or drinks are a better value. And if you have really hungry people, there are better places to get a good deal (Area Four!)

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

One of my roommates from my senior year of college recently moved back to her home state of Texas and joined a chorus called the Rich-Tones. They competed in an international singing competition, and it was so fun to watch online!

Sunday, November 16, 2014

I hosted an articles club brunch this November, and the lovely Oksana was able to join us over skype, all the way from Switzerland!

We fit!

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, but I adore the fact that you can see all of us in the background, with Chase grinning! He's really excited to see his dad. I feel sad that I missed taking a picture of his face when tasting yogurt! He looked so offended, but then tried to eat more, so he's definitely sending mixed messages.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

My couch, covered in papers. A strange filing system, yes, but some of the papers overlapped different sections of the intro, so my piles did as well (ha).

But the good news is that a draft of chapter one is complete! Even better, I spent the time to learn how to use a LaTex graphic interface called Lyx, so it looks quite fetching, if I do say so myself. It feels great to have another thing done! One step closer to graduating.